SelfPreservation
by Rodwen Fefalas
Summary: The Volturi are made aware that Edward Cullen has committed a crime punishable by death: exposing himself to a human. His family is now guilty by association. It's Jane's job to bring justice upon them.
1. Chapter 1

"What is he _doing_?" Aro demanded, thinking aloud.

Jane looked up from where she had been staring out the window. She and Aro stood in his private office, where he'd asked her to meet with him for a while. "A while" had turned into hours, and during her stay, she'd watched the sunlight travel from one window to another until it disappeared entirely and the moon had taken its place. He'd been staring at a large glass globe on his desk, the surface, to her, a cloud-covered world of swirling grey and white patterns. Now, his face was marred only by a small crease in his brow, but his eyes flicked back and forth as he watched with increasing worry, his powdery hands pressed together.

"What's going on?" she asked, walking over to him. Her tone only betrayed the slightest bit of her interest, but inside, she roiled. She didn't like it when things got knocked out of place and by the sound of it, they had.

_Keep calm,_ she told herself as she stood by Aro's shoulder. Jane looked at the globe on his desk, an ornate piece of glass that was half the size of her head and cradled in a bed of smooth, twisted metals, but the surface remained a murky fog. "What _is_ this?"

"Your brother found it for me. It lets me see-everything."

Jane's eyes flashed as she glanced up at him. "Including trouble?"

She watched as Aro straightened his back, keeping his expression neutral. "Of the worst kind," he said in a soft voice. Aro turned to her and took Jane's hand in both of his, one cradling and the other patting the top. The movement caught her off-guard and she had to stop herself from falling back a step. At long last, he met her eyes and part of her wondered if he'd been searching her mind, and if she should've allowed him to touch her.

_If my eyes have betrayed my suspicions, then they aren't worth keeping_. The idea that Aro could see what she was thinking made her shudder, but she wouldn't let _him _see that.

"I need your help, my beloved Jane," he said, his voice unchanging.

She refused to drop his gaze, but she pulled her hand away. "Where should I go?" she asked, keeping her tone and expression professional.

"Washington State."

Jane grinned and nodded, turning towards the door. "What are their crimes?" she asked, raising her voice so that it filled the otherwise tall and empty room.

"The Cullen coven has engaged in an exposition of themselves to humans."

Jane felt something with the force of a cannon go shooting through her body. In her mind, she wavered in her steps as her body threatened to topple over in surprise, but in reality, she let one foot fall beside the other, the heel of her shoe making a single clicking noise as it connected with the stone floor. She let her eyes fill up with the sight of the wooden door, a tall, brown-red structure that had somehow outlasted all the temper tantrums they'd had over the past few centuries.

"You heard me right, Jane," Aro said, and the closeness of his voice surprised her.

She clenched her jaw and nodded. "Consider it taken care of," she said, and walked out before he could take her hands again and try to read her mind.

She walked down the stone hall on gliding footsteps. The windows on the left flew past her, blurring together into the inky darkness of nighttime as she made her way to her brother's room, and the lamplit hallway glowed red with her desire to bring justice as she made her way past three rooms. When she rounded the corner to Alec's room, she found Demetri and Felix walking the other way, talking together. They tampered down their laughter once they caught sight of Jane's face.

"Have you heard about what's happening in Washington State?" she asked. She felt her lips twist as she spoke the words.

Demetri and Felix both fumbled in their steps and she smirked. Even despite their apparent gracefulness, she could make any of the Volturi stumble. None of them feared her the way the other vampires outside of their coven did, but in fairness, they didn't have to. She watched the two vampires glance at each other and then shake their heads. For some reason, this really irritated her and she could feel her anger at their ignorance rise up to strike at and bite them.

"The Cullens are deliberately disobeying the laws we established over more than a hundred years ago!" she snapped, her whole body shaking. If she'd had any blood, her cheeks would've been alight.

Felix's face hardened and he looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. She could see the gears turning behind his eyes as he thought about what this meant. "How? Why? What're they doing that for?" he asked, turning to Demetri, who shook his head. Jane moved around them and continued walking towards her brother's room.

"I don't know. I don't know what could've possessed them to make such a stupid mistake, but I know that we're not going to let them carry on with it. Aro's seen what they're doing, but he won't share that information with me, so we have to assume the worst," she said over the click-clacking of her heels. Behind her, she could hear the scuffle of the two guards as she turned around and raced to catch up. After passing another four rooms, they reached Alec's door and she knocked twice. "Believe me, though, when I say that I'm prepared to deal with it."

She could feel Demetri's eyes on the back of her head. Disapproval radiated from him the way human body odor did and she turned to him, his eyes glancing over both of hers as he tried to figure out what she was thinking. "You've been wanting to stop them for a long time, haven't you?" he asked.

"You have no idea," she whispered as the door opened and Alec looked from one stony face to the other.

"What the hell's going on?" Alec asked as Jane grabbed him by his sleeve and pulled him out the door to follow her down the hall. "Where are we going?"

"We don't have time to talk," Jane said, steering him towards the end of the hallway. "We're going to Washington. I'll tell you everything else on the way." She could feel her brother protesting, turning one way and then the other to try and find out what was happening from either Felix or Demetri, but at long last, he started walking with them on his own. When they'd settled in on their private jet for the journey, Jane told him what she'd told Felix and Demetri, and his eyes became just as murky with confusion as theirs had been upon her explanation of it to them. Unlike Felix and Demetri, however, Alec didn't seem intent to question her. He nodded, studying her face with the same intensity that Demetri had, and sat back in his seat when her story was done.

"Then I trust you'll know how to take care of the problem?" he asked as he lowered his armrest.

Jane saw both Felix and Demetri lean forwards in their seats a bit, as though they'd have to strain to catch her answer. "I'll have it under control," she said.

_I hate this place_, Jane said to herself as they walked through the moss-covered trees towards the Cullen house. _I hate the trees, I hate the murkiness, and I hate how long it takes to get anywhere_. She pulled her hood up farther over her head and kept walking as her cloak brushed off the drops of dew that sprinkled the underbrush, while a steady dripping dotted her cloak as the trees shed their rainwater. Behind her, she could hardly hear her brother, Felix, and Demetri following, but she didn't have to turn around to know they were.

The house emerged from between the trees, an unassuming glass and wood-paneled structure that rose above the dirt hill it rested on and jutted out at odd angles into the forest. No cars sat in the driveway and no vampires-or humans-were in sight, so Jane slowed her pace and stopped their walking once they'd reached the side of the driveway. Aro had been right years ago when he'd pointed out to her that she didn't like the Cullen coven from the moment she'd set eyes on them, the moment she'd learned that Carlisle had created another coven so quickly after leaving the Volturi.

Alec turned to her as she tucked her hands into her pockets and found a rock to sit on. "You're not going to knock on their door?"

"Our point here is just to remind them that we-you, me, Felix, Demetri, and all of us-are watching." She turned back to the house. "And that we know what they're up to." Jane raised her chin a fraction of an inch. "We're going to wait until they see us. I want to be the one they see when they get their warning. Maybe then they'll come to understand just how serious an offense this is. If not, we'll just have to take more drastic measures."

Alec nodded and sat on the rock beside her. Behind them, Felix and Demetri scanned the area around the house, lifting heir noses and turning their heads so that their ears could detect any shift in the wind. Jane listened to the wind in and above the trees, and the traffic only a few feet away, so when the first, slick black car returned home, both she and Demetri recognized it at the same time.

"They're back," she and Demetri chorused. Alec looked from her to him and then returned to watching the car crawling up the driveway.

"They psychic's going to know about us," he warned Jane as the car slowed to a stop.

She stood up. "Good," she said, and watched with hungry eyes as two slim figures unfolded themselves from the car. The short, dark hair gave the passenger away to Jane as being Alice, her light step cementing that suspicion in her mind. Jane took a step towards them, watching her boyfriend's blonde head turn towards the house as Alice stopped and became perfectly still.

"What's wrong?" she heard Jasper ask. "What do you see?"

Jane narrowed her eyes, the corner of her mouth threatening to lift in a smile, but she held the muscles back as she watched them talk.

"Th-the Volturi," she heard Alice whisper. She gasped, as if what she was seeing was too horrible to bear, and Jane watched her body shake a slight bit as she turned to her boyfriend. "They're here."

The fear in Alice's voice sent shivers down Jane's back. She would've liked very much to sit in a pool of the stuff, washing it over her skin to gain its temperature the way she'd rubbed water over her arms to gain the feel of it when she was a child. The smile fought harder to spread, but she contained it. Below, Alice lifted her dark head, her eyes searching the horizon, the hills, and then..._there_.

Her eyes locked with Jane's, her petal-colored mouth agape. Jane didn't blink at all.

_Even you didn't see this one coming_. Jane wanted to laugh in her face. The precious Alice, whom Aro couldn't seem to get enough of, had failed in her job to protect her little family.

Then Jasper's eyes met hers. The scars on his face stood out in his anger and fear as he and Jane studied one another. She watched something behind his eyes shift and turn before he pulled them away and leaned down to ask, "What do they want?"

Even from afar, she could see Alice's face go blank with prediction. Her eyes lost their glow and turned to glass, revealing the soullessness behind them, her mouth froze in its gape. "Th-they're here as a warning," she said.

Jane nodded. She could feel Alec standing up beside her, his arm pressing into hers as Alice saw him emerge. Jane heard her breathing hitch at the double threat and the promise that the others wouldn't be far behind. Jasper's increasing tension mirrored his girlfriend's and Jane could smell a fight drifting upwind to them as the empty tendons on his neck rose.

"They know about Bella," Alice said. Again, Jane nodded. She watched Jasper's face contort with his anger. "How?" he demanded, turning to Alice. "How could they possibly know that?"

_Tell him about the globe,_ Jane offered, smiling to herself inside her head. _Tell him about how little we need you. Tell him about how we've developed our own methods of prediction and that you've become obsolete. That way, when it comes time to kill you for your crimes, we feel no sudden loss at losing you, the _Girl Wonder_, too._ The moment she thought of it, she promised herself she'd never let Aro touch her again.

She heard Alice gasp. If she hadn't been listening for her response, Jane never would've heard it, being so sharp and so sudden. "They have a globe, a seeing stone." She turned to Jasper, grasping his arm, and Jane watched Jasper's free hand push the hair from Alice's face.

"It will be okay," Jane could hear him whispering to her.

_No, it won't_, _but he makes it sound so promising. Even _I'd_ be fooled by him, if I didn't know better._ Jane watched as they both locked eyes with her again, and then went into the house, closing the door behind them and doing everything short of sliding the lock into place. Now, she allowed herself a grin as she thought about the vampire rules of etiquette that stood between the Cullens and the arrival of the Volturi. _No matter what, you can't allow the Volturi to believe they're unwelcome in your home._

She turned and started walking away_. _"Let's go home," she said to Alec, Felix, and Demetri, who followed at a slight distance. She lowered her hood, her signal to them that this had been a good day, and they caught up a little.

Her favorite part of the whole endeavor was invading on their minds. It made her feel on an equal standing with Alice, and gave her another reason to remind Aro that the psychic wasn't a necessary addition to their coven. Through it, she watched Edward writing in his diary about wanting to show the girl, whom he called Bella, the truth of himself. She leaned closer to the globe as his hand traveled across the page, and smiled to herself when she realized she was reading over his shoulder, knowing that the man with the voices in his head would be doing his best to block out as many as he could, so it wouldn't be strange to him if one of those voices was repeating the things he was writing down. As she read, he wrote about a meadow, and how the open spaces like that were the best places for vampires to be seen. Even though she couldn't see any of the past diary entries he'd written, something about this one clicked in her head.

_These are what Aro must've seen when he mentioned that the Cullens were exposing themselves._

Jane made another trip to Washington, but this time by herself, the goal of the meadow firmly in her mind. Although she knew she was relying on Edward's need to block out the mental voices he was hearing, she was sure she'd be safe from his prying until the very last minute and she wound her way through the woods until she found what she was looking for.

_It's just as he'd described in his diary_, she told herself as she approached.

A meadow, so calm and quaint, was filled with golden sunlight and drifting motes of pollen. Inside the meadow, Jane could see the vampire and his beau lying in the grass and violets, like two little cakes on a glimmering, glowing platter of light, just begging her to take them. Their tranquility seemed to form a bubble around the meadow and engulf them in their solitude.

Jane kept her hood up. She rounded the perimeter, staying just inside the shadows as she made her way into the girl, Bella's, range of sight. It didn't matter to her whether Edward would see her; he'd already fulfilled his duty by opening his shirt and letting his little girlfriend see him for what he was. What Jane wanted was to invade the mind of the girl so completely that she became afraid to sleep.

_And the best way to do that would be to scare her boyfriend._

She settled herself into a space just behind Edward to emerge from. Pulling her hood up over her face, Jane stepped far enough into the light to be seen as a figure by Bella's human eyes. Her hood hid her face so that Bella couldn't see her smiling, but Jane watched with a fluttering heart as the girl looked up, gasped, and scrambled away from her boyfriend. Jane retreated a step as Edward sat up.

"What? What is it?" he demanded, his head and shoulders whipping around with such force that his arms flapped at his sides, almost hitting Bella in the face. Jane had to suppress a laugh.

_Even if he hit her, she wouldn't feel it-she's too engrossed in looking at me. _She folded her hands together and waited, watching Bella staring with dull eyes at the spot where Jane had been standing. Jane frowned, wondering why it was taking her so long to see what was happening right in front of her face, and then she noticed it: the glassiness of Bella's eyes. Jane smiled and nodded to herself.

_The boy's been putting all kinds of spells on you, hasn't he?_ She almost laughed as she thought about the "spiritual haze" Bella was under. Vampires, including Jane, transfixed their victims by exuding a certain scent and persona that they knew would best attract their victims when they desired a prolonging of their kill. After that, the victims often took a long jump off a short cliff.

_But he's taking much longer with you than the rest of us would_, Jane told herself. _He's become very protective. Your blood must be calling to him._ She shook her head. _You poor thing_. Part of her fell, a part of her soul that she didn't know still existed. _I'd been wanting so much to dislike you, and now I find out that you're not doing any of this on your own free will. You're really no different from all the other girls your age except...well, you've been chosen by a vampire._

The girl's eyes cleared in increments and her face morphed from confusion to suspicion to doubt. Jane saw Edward's back tense, his head lifting as he sniffed the wind for his prey, and her smile slipped a fraction, even though it amused her to no end that Bella had no idea what was happening. She was too busy staring at Jane, who watched the gears turned in her head as she tried to make sense of what she thought she'd seen.

"I-I thought I saw-" Bella leaned forward, squinted, and then shook her head, trying to appear resolute about her decision, even though Jane could see complete indecision in her eyes. "No. It couldn't be..."

Jane watched Edward turn. "_What did you see?_" he demanded, his voice almost a growl.

Jane smirked. _Getting a little impatient, are we?_

She could've sworn she saw Edward's ears twitch. He whipped his head towards her, but Jane had stepped too far back for him to see.

"I thought I saw a-a person..." she said, her voice trailing into the wind.

Edward's eyes widened and Jane could feel him listening for her, but she kept her mind blank. She knew vampires well enough to know that she didn't need to go around testing their powers to know that some were more dangerous than others. Regardless of the fact that she was stronger than him, she wouldn't test his capabilities when she didn't need to. She took a step forward, her feet soundless on the forest floor, but she watched as he detected the movement and his gaze fell on her. She didn't need to lower her hood; he could see the gleam of her eyes, the outline of her body, and he would know she was waiting for them. Carefully, Jane let her mind open up for one quick second and floated a thought to him through the air.

_We're watching you_.

As the thought enter his head, she imagined the meadow freezing over with the fear that drenched him like a bucket of ice water. His body snapped together, as though he was a doll in its packaging, and he reached down, grabbing Bella by the top of her arm and pulling her to her feet with a roughness that even Jane didn't see as necessary.

"We're leaving," he said. He kept his eyes glued to the spot where Jane stood, as if by keeping his eyes on her, he could force her to stay away from him.

Bella's eyes widened and she turned away from where she was looking for the shadow of Jane that she'd seen before. "Why? What's wrong?"

A light wind, fragrant with flowers, blew by and lifted Bella's hair, pushing the scent of her towards Jane. She lifted her delicate nose and sniffed. The power of Bella's fear tinted the air red, and the smell of it filled Jane with a hunger for the hunt.

_It's so pungent that it's almost tangible._ Her desire to have them chained in the dungeons for aeons at a time flared up and dove into her gut like wildfire. She remembered a time when she'd tried to hide that from the people in her village, and then from Aro, and how it'd resulted in almost ten deaths.

"Edward, what's wrong? _What is it?_" Bella asked. There was a waver to her voice that tinted her words, and one that Jane knew Bella hoped Edward didn't hear.

Jane took another step back, crushing a stick with her heel. She watched as her thought about Bella's blood entered Edward's mind. As he clenched Bella's wrist tighter, the girl's pulse rushing through her veins, whistling like a siren's song in all of their ears, and Jane could almost taste the blood that rose up beneath his fingers.

"There's someone here," he said, keeping his voice low.

Bella's face paled and she started looking around, as if she could detect the problem with her feeble human eyes. "Where are they?" she asked, pressing her body closer to his with every turn.

_Not bothering to hide that little tremor anymore, are we?_ Jane watched Edward stop his fake breathing and pulled his girlfriend back the way they came.

"In the forest," he said, his words tumbling out in one breath. He made to run, trying to fly over sticks and stones that made Bella stumble and fall, so that he had to slow down and pay attention to what he was doing. At one point, he growled his frustration, reached over, and tossed her across his back, despite her protests. Jane pretended to follow them, walking in their direction as Bella shrieked, "EDWARD, I CAN WALK!"

_You can't walk, sweetie. And someday, you may never walk again_. Jane strolled along atop the roots and fallen leaves, watching as Edward heard her thought and panicked, clamping his hands around Bella's shins to secure them against his side and taking off at a sprint until they'd disappeared into the earth-scented forest.

When Jane returned to Volterra, she stormed Aro's study. Forcing the double doors into the room on their hinges, she marched forward into the lamplit room towards the table where Aro, Marcus, and Caius were sitting. Books covered the table between them, and old, ornate cups of silver had been placed before each of their seats as a low haze of candle smoke rose to the ceiling and hovered over them all. The scent of wax and aged paper covered the decaying stink of dead bodies too long kept from the grave. The vampires looked over with flat expressions, but when she grinned, Aro sat up in his seat, folding his hands together.

"I trust your trip has been informative," Aro said, his eyes brightening as she stopped in the middle of the room.

Jane nodded. "Call everyone to attention," she said, turning on her heels and making her way back down the hall. She would have eyes staring at her for most of the afternoon, which mean she didn't need their attention and their questions now.

As she walked, a long bell tolled from the top of their castle. It rang three times and then three more. The firs set of three meant we're on watch, and a second set of three meant that things needed to be addressed. Jane waited outside the meeting hall with her hands folded in front of her and her head held high. Not many of the Volturi guards got to have the honor of addressing the entirety of the coven, but because she'd placed her fingerprints all over it before anybody else could, it was her responsibility to extend what she knew to the crowd.

Pinched and confused faces passed her as the younger members entered, but the older the vampires became, the more stoic they appeared. Some of them already knew what was happening, or they thought they did, and the others had seen so much trouble in their own times that this wasn't anything new. Jane didn't care which it was, only that every member approach it with the same decorum that they approached all of their important problems.

Just as the meeting hall had filled to capacity, she looked down at Volterra, the lights of the city blinking on and off as people came and went, thinking about the psychic, Alice, and what she'd be seeing. Would she tell her family what was happening? Would she let her guard down for even a second? Would Edward have her eyes on them?

_Of course he will. He's just as paranoid as every other young vampire. He'll probably have a watch on that girl's room when they're not together._ She smiled at the thought of the Cullens scrambling to obey the Volturi's decision. _It won't be long now until they're all dead for their crimes_.


	2. Chapter 2

Jane entered the meeting hall with the quiet confidence of the woman she would've been if she'd bee allowed to physically grow. The room was silent, so the clicking of her heels and the scraping of her shoe soles echoed across the tiles as she took her place at the front of her audience. The vampires who returned her gaze did so without blinking, standing in long, ordered rows that didn't shift with their discomfort. Their heads tilted, catlike, in a way that suggested interest, but their blank faces betrayed nothing outside of business and intent.

"I appear before the Council to plead a case of criminal activity, and to request the permission of the Council to allow me to punish said activity as I see fit," she said, her voice filling the room.

At the end of the room, facing both her and the entire Volturi coven, sat Caius, Marcus, and Aro in their thrones, and it was on their signal that she would be allowed to continue. Aro nodded his dark head and pressed his papery hands together. "Please state your case," he said, his feminine voice a whisper.

Jane lifted her chin and turned to face the audience. "There are those among us who are attempting to prevent us from surviving," she said without preamble. A small murmur ran through the crowd, but she silenced it by continuing. "Contrary to popular belief, we are _not_ a coven devoted to needless killings. Yet there are those who insist that the Volturi are a cult designed to instill fear within our kind and murder for pleasure!" She paused, and felt the vague echo of her anger tremble through her body.

The crowd stared back at her, their mouths wired shut as her anger whiplashed off the walls. Any movement in the room ran cold and still. For a second, she believed she was talking to a roomful of statues. It was only when she heard a creaking coming from behind her that she turned and found Aro moving forward in his chair, his elbows braced on his armrests as he steepled his fingers in interest. The corner of her mouth quirked upwards in a smile of gratitude, and her eyes flicked back and forth between Caius and Marcus, neither of whom had moved. Both vampires watched her with suspicious expressions, but neither said anything to stop her, so Jane turned back around. Aro's interest had calmed her and she felt her voice fall back to its normal octave.

"All we are trying to do is live in peace alongside the humans," she continued. "Our job is to keep the balance between the vampires' existence and human knowledge of us. Everything we do has a foundation in that ideal world. Instead, it's as we've feared: the Cullens are a threat to the vampire race. In their interactions with humans, they've lost their way, exposing themselves and seeking to undermine our authority in pursuit of new and outlandish rules that demand human attention."

Some of the murmuring returned. As it did, Jane lifted her head, watching the lips of her fellows as they opened and closed. "This is what we say to them: either you stop what you're doing on your own, or we will end you." Jane nodded to the crowd, and then to Aro before she turned and walked out of the room, leaving the ceiling to fill with fifty Volturi voices. Her eyes glittered with the knowledge that their psychic, Alice, would be watching.

When the sky brightened at the end of the night, Jane felt as if a sonic boom had taken place only a hundred kilometers from the Volturi castle, and the reverberations had loosened the stonework. She went to Aro's study and turned to the globe, bracing her hands on both sides of it on the desk so that she could better get a sense of what she was seeing. The dark center swirled and morphed into deeper and deeper cloud patterns, but nothing rose to the surface, and Jane wondered just how it was that Aro had come to see anything in this. She fell back into his chair and stared at the globe for a moment more before she allowed her eyes to wander off and lose focus. While in the midst of a daydream, she caught a glimmer of something in the glass.

_What?_ She sat up, but the thing left as she blinked. She looked closer before she willed herself to sit back again and just relax her eyes.

_There!_ She saw it again after a couple of minutes, but even as her bloodless heart would've pounded, she willed herself not to blink, not to move, not to scare it off.

As she watched, she saw part of the Cullen family materialize. Edward and Bella huddled in the picture, his arms around her as she stared into space, her face pressed into the shoulder of his shirt. Her mouth was open, but she wasn't crying, and Jane wondered what the point of the embrace was.

_Was Aro able to hear them?_ The moment she wondered it, she dismissed the idea as ludicrous. In the glass, Edward shook his head, talking to her and running his thumb over her cheek before the image faded and became something else. A boy around Bella's age, with long black hair, walked across a stony beach, his forehead furrowed and his walk heavy around the shoulders. Jane narrowed her eyes at the picture.

_What does the boy have to do with anything?_

A few second later, the surface cleared again, and this time Bella was with the long-haired boy, who grabbed her by the shoulders and yelled at her in a voice that made the tendons stand up in his neck. Bella flinched and her eyes glittered, but she didn't say anything and Jane rolled her eyes, imagining that the girl was going to cry. The long-haired boy seemed scared, much the same way Edward had been when he'd located her in the woods that day. Jane sat a little bit closer, resting both of her elbows on the chair's armrests.

_Why's he alarmed?_ She watched his hand reach up and trace the path that Edward's fingers had taken. As he did, Jane watched his chest start to heave as his breathing quickened and she imagined the taste of his pulse as his heart slammed against his ribcage. She watched the boy shake his head and step back, nearly tripping over his own two feet as he struggled to get away from her. He yelled, waving his arm towards something that she couldn't see in the distance. Something clicked in Jane's head and her mouth fell open. She imagined that her deadened heart fluttered in her ribcage.

"He knows," she said to the empty room. "The human boy knows." She laughed, a sound that grew as she realized the full extent of her discovery. "He's trying to warn her about them!"

Jane laughed again, harder, her body rocking with her mirth. As she thought about it, another thought came to her mind that made her heart sink and she calmed down, sitting up. If she'd still been able to sweat, it would've dried on her skin, leaving her cold and clammy. "The Cullen family hasn't been covering their tracks."

Someone knocked on the door and she called out for them to enter. Aro stood in the doorway, his hands folded in front of him. "Having fun?" he asked.

Jane clenched her jaw, stopping Aro in his tracks as he entered the room. "The Cullens have no idea that they've been figured out by some boy in the local community." She pointed to the globe. "I've just seen the boy talking with the vampire's girlfriend, and he's terrified."

Aro smiled, a tight stretching of his lips, and nodded. "Aren't you going to do anything about it?"

Jane sat there, stunned for a moment, and then nodded. She rose, heading towards the door. "I'm going to do to them what we should've done to their entire family years ago," she said as she passed him.

"Just remember that hey have no idea what's coming," Aro called over his shoulder.

She smiled. "I know."

Jane brought Alec, Felix, and Demetri with her this time. She knew that Alice would be watching, that the family would be on red alert, and that they'd be scrambling to find out where they'd have to "make their stand." She _wanted_ this. She wanted them to feel terror, to suffer from having broken the law. She wanted them to see that their choices had consequences.

"We're going to a meadow," she told the others as they walked, following behind her in a triangular formation the way geese traveled. "I saw it the last time I was here. They'll meet us when we arrive."

"Sister."

Jane turned as Alec ran up behind her. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Jane turned back to the path as she spoke, not wanting to see the doubt her brother had in his eyes. She wished he would direct that kind of attention to a moron, not to her. "I know precisely what I'm doing, Alec. You don't have to worry. I've been waiting for this." Behind her, she could feel him, Felix, and Demetri exchanging glances, but she didn't let that bother her.

When they emerged from the woods, the Cullen family stood in the middle of the meadow with their hands behind their backs. They kept Bella somewhat hidden by the line of their members, but Jane could still see the girl and wished they'd just be honest with themselves and bring her forward.

_It makes it so much harder on them when they feel like they've got something to hide, even if they're right._

Jane when she stood almost, which felt important. If Edward did something, if he got angry, then she knew she had backup. The very idea that Edward could hurt her made her roll her eyes.

"You're in a very perilous position," she told them as she stopped three feet from where Carlisle stood, the others falling into line behind her. All eight pairs of eyes fell onto hers, but Jane's met Bella's and the girl tucked herself behind her boyfriend, who moved back a half-step. Jane smiled. "Your little friend here has other friends. They know about your existence," she looked at each of the Cullen family members, "and when one person knows, everybody knows. They're very worried about her, too." Jane turned to Edward and she watched his mouth harden into a line. "That makes life dangerous for all of us, and that means there's nothing else for the Volturi to do but intervene."

From the corner of her eye, she could see Carlisle nod, his whole face pinched into a serious expression. She never did think it suited him. "Can you tell us what you've seen and how it comes as a concern to you?" he asked, and the politeness of his tone set her back a step. She knew he'd been one of Aro's favorites, but she'd never quite understood the appeal until his human politeness appeared. She loved it as much as she hated it, but like Aro, it made her want him to return to the Volturi. "Bella has many friends and we know her well enough to trust that she wouldn't go running around telling them our secrets."

Jane glanced at Alice and the corner of her mouth lifted. The line of Alice's jaw tightened and she shifted her weight as Jasper put a hand on her arm. "Is that because you're keeping tabs on her, the way you've been keeping tabs on us for these last few weeks?" she asked, but she turned back to Carlisle as Alice's eyes widened and she looked at her adopted "father." His attention wasn't for Alice, either.

"We trust Bella," Edward said, and the rush of exasperated energy that ran over his family as he spoke made her want to laugh. It moved through each of them like a warm summer breeze and for a moment, both Carlisle's wife and his blonde daughter looked ready to hide their faces in their hands.

"Oh, I'm quite sure you do," Jane said, looking at Alec, Felix, and Demetri, whose mouths quirked, although their expressions betrayed nothing. She nodded at Bella, who backed away. "You, girl. You have a long-haired friend, male, who got very, very upset at you a few days ago, probably because he found out about" she nodded at the Cullens "them."

Jane watched as the blood left Bella's face and the Cullen family turned to her, their faces pinched. The blonde girl, whose hair had been brushed back from her face, turned her eyes to the woods and smirked as she shook her head. A towering, dark-haired boy beside her with his sleeves pushed up to his elbows tapped her arm, as if to say, "cut it out," but the girl paid him no attention. Esme and Carlisle turned to one another and whispered in low voices, and even Edward turned around, his face disbelieving to the eyes of any vampire. Even Alice's face dropped, her brows raised in worry as she looked behind her family to stare at her friend.

"I'm guessing her little soirées with her other friends has gone unnoticed," Jane said, and this time she let herself smile.

Carlisle turned his attention to her with a snap of his head. "Bella is free to visit whichever friends she likes. We don't hold her accountable for the people she hangs out with."

"Until now," Jane said, and took a step forward, her hands folded in front of her. At Jane's approach, Bella turned, shaking like a lamb and trying not to look Jane in the face, her eyes darting from one place to another. "Tell me, Bella. Who is this friend and why does he know so very much about us?"

Bella's jaw flapped, making her look like a fish out of water. Jane would've loved to keep playing this game, but she wanted to cut to the chase. "Spit it out, girl!" she snapped, her eyes flashing.

A hand on her shoulder turned her around. Alec's face was beside hers as he leaned over to whisper, "Do you want me to do something about this?" he asked.

Jane shook her head.

"Jacob's just a friend!" Bella said, turning from the Volturi to the Cullens with every nod of her head.

Jane watched Alice's face fall even more. The vampire shook her head at the ground in such heavy disappointment that Jane almost felt bad. "Friends talk, Bella," Alice said, her voice heavy with disapproval.

Edward hadn't stopped staring at her. "Who's this Jacob? He doesn't go to our school. We haven't seen him-_I_ haven't seen him."

Bella shook her head, her hands flopping at her sides. "He lives on the reservation-"

Jane watched with growing glee as the whole family took a step back, their eyes widening and their faces elongating into masks of horror. The blonde girl looked about ready to cry.

"Bella, how _could_ you?" Alice asked, her whole body slumping as her voice hit octaves only dogs could hear. Her mate put his arm around her.

"Do you know what this means?" the blonde girl demanded, her face scrunched and her fists clenched as she moved towards Bella. Edward turned and blocked her way as his sister advanced. She just kept walking, her whole body shaking, until she was pressed up against her brother, pointing an accusing finger at Bella over his shoulder. "This means that the wolves know!"

Jane blinked as her understanding of things clicked into place. "You mean to say that _werewolves_ are now aware of your existence?" she demanded, her jaw tightening.

Each of the Cullens turned to her except for Edward, whose eyes went to the ground. They looked like children who'd gotten caught with the cookie jar. Jane would've laughed if things hadn't been so serious.

"You do understand what this means, don't you?" Demetri asked from behind Jane's left shoulder, his voice resonating around the meadow.

Edward shook his head. "We don't have anything to fear from the wolves. They don't have any claims to her."

Jane felt ready to spit. "You don't _know_ that!" she snapped, stepping forward again and looking them each in the eye. Every Cullen's eyes ranged with emotions, until she landed on Bella's, whose fear maintained its palpability. _The only one among them who's more clueless than the rest. How typical_. "You didn't even know she had ties to the wolves and now you're telling me that one little wolf isn't going to spoil your plans?" She laughed once, a bitter sound that grated against her throat. "How dull _are_ you all?"

A silence fell over the meadow as every Cullen let the shame of their new reality sink in. She watched as Esme looked at Carlisle, followed by the blonde children, and then by the brunettes. Bella's eyes didn't turn from Edward's back, but Jane could still see the slight dullness to her eyes, the sheen that was keeping her under his spell.

_That won't be there if the wolves get ahold of her for good_, she told herself, catching Edward's eye as he glanced up with the sound of her thought. _Then again, it won't matter._

"What does this mean for us?" Carlisle asked at long last. He'd taken his wife's hand and they seemed to shrink into each other, as if by folding themselves together, they could protect themselves.

"A few things need to be made perfectly clear," Jane said in a tall voice, folding her arms in front of her chest. She nodded at Bella. "The girl has ties with the wolves. To her advantage, this means that they have some unmade claim to her, which means that she could've been under their protection and we couldn't touch her."

She knew the good news wouldn't come as a consolation and she watched as fourteen pairs of curious, but suspicious, eyes flashed at her. They all clamored to get past the advantages and find out what the problems were.

"As you might've already known, no such claims have been made. I doubt they even know she's fraternizing with you all, considering how long you've gone without having a confrontation."

Bella's mouth moved for a moment, but she stopped herself from say anything by covering her lips with her hand. Jane rolled her eyes. "What is it?" she asked, unable to keep the boredom out of her voice.

"Jacob knows about them. You said you'd seen him talking about it, right?" she asked, her eyes shining. The Cullen family turned from one to the other in the blink of an eye, but Jane shrugged.

"Just because he knows doesn't mean he's laid claim to you. The wolves can kick and scream about this all they want, but you're not under their protection."

Both Carlisle's and Edward's eyes flashed and narrowed at her, their faces various amounts of stony and afraid. "Which means?" Carlisle asked as his wife's nails dug themselves into his forearm.

Jane raised her head. "She can tell other people because you haven't made it impossible for her not to. You've been letting her live, when you could've had her killed, or erased her memory and sent her on her way, or frightened her into submission."

"I tried!" Edward snapped, startling both Jane and his family. His eyes glowed with regret and unshed tears, and she wondered how much it was killing him, listening to the Volturi decide the fate of his girlfriend. "She wouldn't go away!" Bella opened her mouth, shocked, and started to say something when Jane cut her off.

"Her being human is dangerous. Either she dies, or all of you must. We can't risk further exposure at the hands of stupidity and nostalgic vampires."

Every Cullen jumped in front of Bella, but Jane shook her head at their crouched bodies.

"You have three days to either make her one of us, or die. We'll be back when the decision's been carried out." She turned to Alec, Felix, and Demetri, and as one, they left the meadow on slow feet. She could hear the Cullens shuffling behind her, but she didn't look back and she didn't pity their fear one bit.

Jane confined herself to Volterra, where she kept her eyes on the globe. Aro had stopped bothering to interfere, leaving her to herself, which was just as she'd wanted it to be. As the sun rose and her fellows slept, she stared into the swirling silver clouds. Once or twice, Alec stuck his head into the room, but every time, she refused to acknowledge him and he walked away, leaving her to her thoughts again.

Her face fell in horror as she watched the Cullens dive into one stupid decision after the next. Bella ran away from home in the mirror of the glass, no doubt leaving her parents sick with worry. Jane watched as she and Edward got married and coupled and Jane turned away from the globe in disgust. Bella's wolf friend to break down at her, screaming until his face turned red on the second day. Bella never stopped clenching and unclenching her bag straps as she moved from place to place on the second day, her stomach growing bigger by the second, but she also never apologized to her parents, and Jane found that unforgivable.

On the third day, Jane wandered back into the room to check on them. She knew she'd be heading back within twenty-four hours and part of her wanted to be prepared for what she was bound to see. As she sat down, she stared at the globe and the glass began to clear as her eyes adjusted to their murkiness. The moment she leaned forward enough to see what was going on, her jaw fell open and her heart lifted with the joy of a kid at Christmas.

"This is too perfect," she said to the empty room. A second later, she stood and walked out as quickly as she'd entered, striding on fast feet towards the meeting room where Aro, Marcus, and Caius had been gathering for a week. Throwing the long double doors open, she found them sitting around a table, a pile of books between them as they spoke in low voices and tapped the ends of empty pipes on the table. All three of them looked up when Jane entered, but only Aro sat up when he saw her advance.

"The Cullens have chosen extermination," she said.


	3. Chapter 3

Jane didn't bother with a meadow or a special new place for their argument to ensue. She led them straight to the Cullen house, where they waited in the driveway for the family to muster the courage to find out what the verdict had been. After standing with growing impatience for half an hour, Carlisle emerged from the house, his starched collar peeking out over his lavender sweater. Jane wanted to laugh at how ridiculous it looked.

"I'm sorry, this is a very bad time," he said, putting his hands in his pockets as he approached them. "Bella isn't feeling very well."

Jane smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. She hoped Carlisle knew she wasn't buying this. "I'm sure. Children can do that to you," she said. There was a rustle behind her as Alec, Felix, and Demetri laughed.

Carlisle sighed and smiled, nodding. "So you _do_ know about that," he said.

Jane cocked her head. "You sound relieved. You shouldn't be."

Carlisle's face fell and he stood straighter. "Why do you say that?" he asked.

"That child is an abomination. Immortal children have to be killed immediately. Otherwise, there's a chance of rampage that we cannot afford."

Horror struck Carlisle like a truck to the side and he started shaking his head, but Alec, Felix, and Demetri had already started moving towards the house. "No! You don't understand! That child wasn't bitten!" he said, but neither of the Volturi guards were listening. Jane tried to step around him, but Carlisle grabbed her arm and pulled her back as he watched Alec and Demetri heading towards his house. "Please, Jane, you need to understand! That "immortal child," is a baby, and it's being born as we speak! And now Bella's very sick. We have to help her."

Jane looked him in the eye, her whole face as flat and as neutral as stone. "No," she said.

Carlisle balked at her. In his failure to stop them, the other Volturi guards entered the house, slamming the front door shut. Carlisle turned around at the sound and started after the trespassers.

"Hey! They can't go in there! That's breaking and entering!" he said as he ran after them.

Jane shook her head. "It's not breaking and entering for the Volturi to enter your house, which should already be open to us," she said, but Carlisle was already inside. He disappeared just in time for the bulky, dark-haired male to come flying out, Demetri on his tail. The boy tripped on the stairs, rolled, and jumped back onto his feet, facing Demetri while a woman inside the house screamed. Demetri closed the distance between them, followed by the blonde girl from the meadow, who held her hands out at her sides, her whole body leaning forward as if preparing to jump on him if he did anything wrong. Her wide eyes followed the Volturi guard's every move.

"No! Stop it! Leave him alone! Emmett! Emmett, run!" she called. Her voice rose with her fear until her words sounded torn at the edges. Her eyes bugging as they filled with tears that didn't exist anymore.

Jane watched the dark-haired boy, Emmett, shake his head and drop into a fighter's stance, his fists clenching at his sides as Demetri walked closer to him. "No way, babe!" he called back. "I'm staying right here."

"You're going to die," Jane said.

The sound of her voice startled him enough to turn him around, and his pause immobilized him long enough for Demetri to come up, take hold of his head, and rip it away from his body with such force that the body went flying into a nearby tree. When it hit, the entire clearing could hear his spine snap and his body fall to the ground. The blonde girl screamed, her hands pulling at her hair as she watched Demetri toss the head to the ground.

Jane walked up alongside the vampire's girlfriend. She'd fallen to her knees and begun pulling at the arms of her shirt, rocking back and forth as her face pinched with the inability to cry. An older woman with long hair and a dress came running out, her eyes flying over the scene as she entered her front yard.

"What's happening?" she demanded, but the yard spoke for itself. She watched the woman's face fall, her her hands reaching up to cover her mouth as she found the Emmett boy. "Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no! Oh god!" she whispered, her eyes bulging. She stayed like that for a second and then turned to Jane, her face wild with hate. "You're a monster!" she said, her whole body shaking. Jane didn't blink. "You're a monster and you're going to pay for all of this!" she snapped and then turned to look at the body of her adopted son again.

"He was asking for it," Jane said, walking into the house. From the corner of her eye, she saw the blonde girl stop dry sobbing and turn towards her.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" she screeched, getting up and leaping towards Jane.

"No!" her mother said. She caught the girl by the waist at the last minute, but her daughter's free hand clawed the air, her eyes gleaming with the budding desire to kill. "No, Rosalie! You won't! You can't!"

Jane wasn't afraid. The girl wasn't angry enough-she was still in mourning. "Listen to your mother, child," she said, raising her voice over the growling of the blonde as her free arm wrenched itself towards Jane. "Your boyfriend had it coming, and if you even _think _for one _minute_ that taking it out on us is going to change anything about the way we work, then you might as well join him."

Jane watched the mother's eyes widen and she pulled Rosalie more securely against herself, clenching her daughter as if her life depended on it. Rosalie's eyes had dimmed, her face puffy and her body going limp. "No! Don't you dare! She'll behave. You'll behave, won't you, Rosalie?" she asked, hugging her daughter with her elbows as she reached up to smooth the girl's flyaway hair from her face. In human times, her cheeks would've been sticky, but now, only her face and eyes bulged, glowing gold as she bloated with animal blood that pressed against the backs of her eyes. Her arms slipped around her mother's waist and she tucked her head against her shoulder.

"Oh, god. Oh, god. Emmett," she muttered over and over, like a prayer.

Jane nodded and turned towards the stairs just as Carlisle appeared, his face ashen, even for a vampire. When he caught sight of what was happening below, his eyes flitting from his wife and Rosalie, he gripped the railing.

"What happened?" he demanded, running down the stairs. "What have you done?" He spoke to Jane, but his eyes were on his family.

"Your son got in the way," Jane said, alighting the stairs as the smell of human blood drifted down to her. As she climbed, she heard his wife whisper, "They killed Emmett," and the room fell silent. Jane could feel Carlisle's eyes on her back, but she kept walking until she'd reached the landing, where the scent of blood now drifted around her like a second coat, thick and rich on the air.

"How could you?" he asked. His eyes had widened, but he remained more composed than either of his women as he rubbed Rosalie's back.

Jane tightened her jaw and turned so that she was facing him completely. "Emmett was aiding and abetting criminals. He attempted to stop us upon entry. He attacked a Volturi guard. He got in our way, so we got rid of him. Justice has barely even started with your family yet."

She didn't wait for Carlisle or his wife to respond, turning down the hallway with her nose to the ceiling as followed the smell of human blood. It wasn't hard, leading her down the hall a short ways and to a room with a closed door.

A scream pierced the air as Jane entered. The lights had been reduced to a single lamp on one side of the room, and another hanging from the bookshelves on the other. Between them, on a long table bedecked in sheets and pillows, lay the human, screaming at the top of her lungs and clenching the sides of the table until her knuckles turned white, a giant, bleeding hole where her stomach should've been. Seconds later, her screams subsided and she took too giant, heaving breaths before lying back against the pillows, her body going limp. Jane didn't need to be standing by her side to know she was dead. The scent of death had been coating her body like a fresh new perfume since the moment Jane had smelled her.

A shadow moved into Jane's way, blocking her vision and she recognized it as Edward, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hand pressing a syringe into her chest. He bent every so often, moving up and down her body, and avoided the giant hole in Bella's stomach. As he moved, the scent of human blood followed him.

"Alice!" he called, desperation tinging his voice as he dragged out the "i" in her name. "I need help, here!"

Jane moved forward as she watched him worked. Keeping her mind blank, and taking advantage of his distraction, she reached up and took hold of his head.

_One_, she directed herself, and ripped his head clean off. The links in his spine separated with a sickening crunch, and his body twisted to the left as it fell, crumpling in a heap on the floor. His shirt, forearms, and hands stained the wood floors with the human's blood.

The sound of feet came pitter-pattering into the room and the psychic pixie-girl appeared in the doorway at Jane's left, her face ashen. "Sorry, Edward. The Volturi - AHH!" she shrieked, catching sight of Jane, her hands flying to her mouth. Jane stared right back, but the girl's eyes flicked downward to the body.

"You knew I was coming," Jane accused her, the way she knew Edward would've if he'd been alive. "You knew I was coming and you warned him too late."

Alice's eyes tightened, her eyes bulging the way the rest of her family's eyes had. "I only knew when you were in the middle of doing it," she said.

Jane raised her eyebrows. "You're trying to justify your refusal to help your family?"

"I had the baby to take care of!" Alice snapped.

Jane laughed. Her throat opened towards the ceiling and she let her lungs heave as the sound of her mirth ricocheted off the walls. "You don't have to explain yourself to me! Your parents are the ones you're going to need to explain this to. Of course," Jane stopped laughing and smiled, "they knew I was coming. I'm just doing my job."

Alice shook, her eyes weakening as she glanced from Bella to Edward. She seemed the most capable of crying of any vampire. "You're a monster," she whispered, her fists clenched at her sides.

Jane smiled. "Yes. Rosalie informed me of that." She watched as Alice turned to look Bella.

"Is she-?"

"Dead? Yes. Don't worry your little head, though. I'm not the one who killed her. You can thank Edward for that."

Alice's eyes flashed, pulsing with anger. "Edward was trying to save her!"

"Then he shouldn't have ripped a hole in her stomach!"

"He had to get the baby out somehow! It was killing her!"

Jane's mouth closed into a smile as Alice backed up a step with the horror of what she'd just revealed. "The immortal child. Yes." She took a step forward and Alice took one back. "Take me to it."

"No."

Jane's eyes flashed. "Alice, take me to the child."

Alice backed up again, fear swirling with the doubtful confidence in her eyes. "No!" she said, putting all the force behind it that her little body could muster. Just as she backed out of the room, edging towards the child, the blonde boy appeared beside her, his face scrunched with confusion.

"Alice? What's going on?" he asked. His eyes fell on Jane and the temperature in the room dropped. Jane could feel the waves of his anger pushing up against her in beats as his eyes darkened and his hands started shaking. Alice reached over, rubbing his back with one hand, the other one gripping his arm as if to hold him back.

"Jasper," she whispered. "Jasper, it's okay. It's the Volturi. Calm down."

"You need to bring me the child," Jane said. She made her way towards the room Alice had been heading for, until Jasper's arm shot out, blocking her way. She watched his scarred jaw tighten, and the anger in his eyes still barely controlled after all these years.

"You aren't going anywhere," he said through clenched teeth. They stood so close that she felt his body heat against the back of her hand.

Jane looked at him for a long time. "Jasper, your criminal record is so high that I'm surprised Aro hasn't put out an arrest warrant out for you. You're a danger to yourself and others. Why are you protecting her" she nodded at Bella's dead body "when you're the one who wanted to kill her on sight the day Edward met her?"

This knowledge startled him enough to drop his arm and step back, his face creasing with pain as Alice gaped at the Volturi guard and pulled her boyfriend close.

"Jasper? Listen to me. It's okay. It's going to be okay," she whispered.

"Don't lie to him," Jane said. Both vampires turned back to her, their eyes brimming with hate. "I'm placing Jasper under arrest for homicidal behaviors and emotions towards humans. We can't have him running around wanting to tear off the throat of every person who walks by." She pulled a wire cord out from her robe pocket and reached for his hands. Alice gasped and pulled her boyfriend closer.

"He's gotten better! We need him! He helps control our emotions!" she said, her voice getting higher with each sentence.

Jane's eyes flashed. "That's an even better reason to induct him into the Volturi. He can help us with the criminals we put to justice." She reached for his hands again, but Alice jumped in her way, her arms spread-eagled so that Jane wouldn't be able to walk around her.

"He'll _die_ there! You can't do that!" she said. Her eyes bulging again, and Jane remembered her earlier thought about Alice being able to cry.

She stared at the psychic. "Would you like to go with him?" she asked. The comment had been meant as a snide remark, but she watched, amused, as Alice blinked and looked at her boyfriend, the gears turning in her head. "Aro has been wanting you to join the Volturi," Jane said, even though the words tasted sour in her throat. She wondered if putting Jasper's freedom on the line might sweeten the deal. "I would've taken Edward to prison, too, but as you can see..." She shrugged.

Jasper's whole body turned to look in the room, nearly wrenching Alice's hands from his. "You killed Edward?" he asked.

Jane's eyes hardened and she stood a little straighter. "You don't play with your food."

Jasper looked ready to slap her. "She wasn't his _dinner_," he said, spitting the word as if it had a bitter taste. "She was going to be his mate!" He paused, staring at Bella's body on the table. "Our new sister."

Jane shook her head. "She had too many ties and _he_ became too dangerous to keep around. We didn't want him becoming homicidal like his brother." She let that sink in as she wrapped the cord around his hands, tightening them so that his veins bulged where she cut them off at the wrists.

Again, from the corner of her eye, she could see Alice's eyes welling up as she watched. Jasper didn't protest, so Jane tied the knot tighter, nodding and stepping back, as she admired her handiwork. "Go and wait outside," she said, turning towards the hallway. She could smell the baby.

A hand descended on her arm. "Wait!" Alice said.

Jane turned around and the psychic took a step back, letting go.

"Take me, too," she said, her voice as small as a church mouse. Jane watched as Jasper's eyes widened.

"Alice, no!" he snapped, stepping forward, but she put a hand on his arm.

_If anyone ought to be able to control emotions, it should be _her, Jane told herself as she watched the two of them and resisted the urge to get back to the baby. She didn't want her captives to escape while her back was turned, so she waited.

Alice pressed her cheek to Jasper's, rubbing one hand up and down his chest and holding his arm with the other. "I'm not going to leave you now," she whispered.

Jane rolled her eyes, but as he leaned in to kiss her, she felt a pang that a little voice in the back of her mind told her was called _jealousy_.

_Well, I haven't felt anything like _that_ in a long time._ She reached out and pulled Alice's arms away, breaking their kiss. Another length of wire cord emerged from inside her cloak pocket and she wrapped it as tightly as she'd wrapped Jasper's. "Alec will take care of you until it's time to leave," she told them, standing Alice beside Jasper against the wall. The psychic hung her head, and Jasper kept his eyes on his girlfriend, even though Jane could feel him watching her as she moved into the room where the child was being kept.

Blackout curtains hung over the windows and a small lamp had been placed in the corner so that a warm yellow light bounced off the walls and created long shadows out of the doorway. To one side was a bookcase and to the other, a set of dresser drawers. In the middle, a cradle with high walls and a blanket draped over the side emitted a soft cooing sound. As Jane approached, she could smell the dying warmth of half-human flesh as it chilled beneath the icy surface of frozen skin. She ran her hand along the blanket draped over the side, made of a light blue, pink, and yellow pattern of ducks and daisies, as she glanced in.

Bright eyes stared up at her from inside the cradle and a light tuft of brown hair sprouted from an otherwise bald head. Rounded cheeks and puckered lips squished together around a pointed nose, and equally rounded fingers flailed in the air as their arms attempted to lift them. Jane took one of these hands and held it between her fingers.

She gasped as the image of a field of blue clouds and silver stars filled her mind. They dangled on gossamer threads as thin as spider's webs and shone around her beneath a pink and gold sky. Jane pulled her hand away and the vision was gone, as if someone had pulled her out of a very long blink. She stared at the child, who looked right back at her with eyes that seemed to say, "What are you going to do about me now?"

_What _are_ you?_ Jane pursed her lips and tightened her jaw. She thought about what Aro might say if he saw the child, and then about both Alice and Edward. He'd be getting his _precious Alice_, a thought that still stung, but _once he sees what the child can do, he might not want to kill it._ She could see him trying to train the child and thought of him becoming desolate with his inability to succeed.

_The child might have amazing powers, but not at the cost of losing everything we've worked so hard for._ She stared at it, nodding her head as it blinked up at her and cupping its elbow through the swaddling.

"INTRUDER!"

Jane spun around at the sound of Demetri's voice, but the hallway outside the door was empty. She could hear the commotion outside as Felix and Demetri called to the intruder to stop and scuffled to disarm it. Below, she could hear the intruder saying, "I'm looking for Bella! Where is she?"

She turned back to the child, holding her head high and her back straight. She smiled, the kindest smile she could manage, and imagined a white-hot pain shooting across each of the child's limbs.

It shrieked. Its eyes closed tight, its little face scrunching up and turning Christmas red as it opened its pink, fleshy mouth and howled at the ceiling. The swaddling seemed to expand as its body coiled together, bright red tears coursing down its cheeks. It shot its legs out, kicking the air inside its blankets and thrashing its tiny arms to be released as its thin brow pulled together, cinching the skin above its nose as it screamed and kicked. Jane made the pain hotter. It screamed louder.

"BELLA!" she heard the intruder screech down the hall, a male voice that stalled for a second before moving closer to the room. Jane didn't take her eyes off of the child.

_It will only make your death easier to bear_, she told it, reaching down with both hands and grasping its head. With one swift twist and pull pull, the screaming stopped and the baby died.

"HEY!"

Jane let go of the baby. She turned to the intruder and smiled, sending the same wave of white-hot pain into _his_ body. She recognized who he was by his long hair once he was writhing, his veins standing out in his neck and his eyes pushed back into his head as his leg muscles clenched and he fell to his knees. She smiled wider as she walked towards him.

"You're in the wrong place, boy," she whispered, crossing her arms and leaning over him as he struggled to open his eyes and look at her. His teeth, clenched and bared, made the air hiss as he inhaled. "You should've stayed away." Jane turned and walked back to the child, stopping the pain as she reassembled the broken body, settling the head right on top of the neck and pulling the blanket closed around its face.

"Y-y-you k-killed B-B-Bella?" he asked, his voice still low to the floor. She could feel his anger, but she wasn't scared. His momentary immobility left her with ample time to fix what she needed and leave before he could get his bearings together.

Jane sighed and picked up the child, being careful of its head, which made her smile and laugh a little bit. _That's the part they always tell you to be the most gentle with, isn't it? And look at me! I'm being oh-so careful._ It surprised her that the body had any weight to it, and she cradled it in the crook of her arm as she turned around. The boy was trying to get up, leaning on one knee and pushing himself into a standing position.

"No, I didn't kill your friend. That was Edward's doing," she said, looking at his shaking knees and his heavy eyes as he heaved in breaths and tried to regain his balance.

"What are you?" he asked. He glanced at the bundle and Jane watched as he put it together in his mind-the size, the shape-and then turned his eyes to the cradle behind her. "What's that?" he asked, wary.

Jane smirked. "Figure it out," she said, and debilitated him with pain long enough to let her pass through the hallway again.

She emerged at the top of the stairs, carrying the dead baby in her arms as she watched Alec bringing Alice and Jasper out to where Demetri was standing. Carlisle and his wife were nowhere to be seen. "What happened to Carlisle?" she demanded.

Demetri nodded to the side of the house. "They took off. The second the psychic, here, told him that you'd killed Edward, and that Bella was dead, he took his wife and said they were going to leave in peace."

As she let this sink in, Jane nodded, a slight smile pulling at her lips. She looked at Alice and Jasper, whose eyes had widened with disbelief. "I guess your father's not as strong and mighty as you'd like to think he is," she said.

Jasper lunged towards her, but the cords at his wrists held his arms back and Demetri kept one hand wrapped around the vampire's arm. Alice gasped, but she stepped towards him and pressed her chest against his side.

"Jasper, it's not worth it," she whispered, but his eyes danced with anger. Jane wouldn't look away.

_You can't scare me away, you ignorant fool._

"Carlisle is twice the man you think he is!" he snapped.

Jane rolled her eyes and moved past them with the baby. She could feel both of their eyes watching her and she heard Alice sob at the sight of the bundle before Jane found Rosalie sitting on the steps, still staring at the body of her dead boyfriend. Everything that'd been so vampire-pretty about the blonde seemed to have washed away from her face, making her look just as human as ever.

"Leave the blonde. She can do nothing for us," she called and walked down the front steps. Rosalie didn't even turn her way. "Take the couple, though. Aro wants the psychic. The blonde boy is our prisoner and is to be kept in confinement. He's been committing horrible crimes ever since his inception."

She turned down the road, stopping at the body of Rosalie's boyfriend, whom she'd called Emmett. Already, she could see his body decaying with the number of years that were finally catching up to him. His skin had aged since she'd been in the house, and now it hung across his bones like a too-thin blanket, wrinkled and pasty, as his muscles congealed on themselves and the blood he'd consumed was forced out of his body. She watched it emerge in thin trickles from the corner of his mouth and stain the crotch of his pants. As she studied him, the weight of the dead baby began to strain on her arms and she shifted it, mindful of the head.

_I haven't carried this much weight in years_, she reasoned with herself, forcing away the idea that it was a weakness and not her lack of muscle use.

"_What the hell is that?"_

Jane turned and saw Rosalie standing up. Her eyes had gone wide and as bright as headlights, but her whole body crouched forward and she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the bundle Jane held. "_WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!"_ she shrieked, walking forward fast enough that Jane could tell she'd cross the yard in four long strides. Her eyes raged. "_IS THAT THE BABY? IS THAT MY NIECE? IS SHE DEAD?! DID YOU KILL HER, YOU LITTLE MONSTER? YOU LITTLE BITCH?"_

Rosalie got close enough that Jane could see the lines on her face and the flecks of color in her eyes. As two claw-like hands descended for the bundle, Jane looked over Rosalie's shoulder.

"Felix!" she called, wondering why he hadn't run over sooner.

It made more sense when he'd gotten into range-his eyes had become as wide as Rosalie's were. She watched in as he grabbed the girl behind the arms and wrenched her back. Rosalie kicked her legs up, aiming for Jane's head, her teeth bared and her eyes flashing, but Felix body-slammed her to the ground. She stopped kicking, but her sobs echoed in the dirt and filled the yard. Felix reached down and forced her to stand, lifting her by the shoulder until she stood on her own two feet, before he glanced at Jane.

"Are you okay? Did she get you?" he asked, looking her up and down.

Jane shook her head, waving away his concern. "I'm fine."

He nodded, and then frowned at her. "Why didn't you use your powers?"

Again, Jane shook her head, pulling the bundle tighter to her chest. "I didn't think it was necessary."

Felix studied her for a moment before he led Rosalie back to her seat. Jane felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around to find Alec by her side. He stared at the baby and then at Emmett.

"You have a plan for them, sister?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

Jane nodded. "We'll have to take them with us. I imagine there are car keys somewhere in the house. We'll take one of the vehicles onto the jet and bring them back to Voltera to burn. It isn't safe keeping bodies here." She looked to the trees, their leaves rustling in the wind, and she took a long, delicate sniff. "Too much information has been shared." She turned back to Alec, who nodded and looked to Rosalie. Jane followed his gaze.

The blonde sat on the steps leading up to her front door. Her arms were propped up on her knees with her mouth pressed against her fists, and she stared out at the forest across from her. Even though her eyes flicked around, she didn't seem to be looking at anything.

"Leave her," she told her brother. "The boy, Edward, already killed his... girlfriend..." Jane shook her head, confused. "Or wife? Or whoever she was to him. This girl's the only one left, now that her parents have run away."

Demetri looked up as he folded first Alice and then Jasper into the backseat of one of the Cullen's cars, a small van for a family much smaller than they were. "You're not worried that they'll come back?" he asked, closing the door.

Jane looked around for a second, wondering where Felix had gone. When she looked at Demetri, he nodded towards the house. "He's looking for keys."

"I don't think they'll come back. They weren't as attached to this one," Jane said, looking at Rosalie. "And Bella's human, so they wouldn't risk toting her around if there was any chance of her getting ravaged by another coven." Behind her, she heard Alec snigger, and smiled to herself. The idea of it _was_ pretty funny.

As Felix walked over and hauled Emmett's body over his shoulder, toting his head along by the hair, Jane saw her brother point to Rosalie.

"Are we in danger of you following us?" he demanded. Jane rolled her eyes and walked over to the driver's seat, pulling the trunk lever and stowing the baby inside, at the back.

"Don't worry about it," Jane said, turning towards the house. "There's still Edward's body. Go pick that up."

Alec nodded and disappeared. Jane tuned to Rosalie, who was sitting down again, her arms wrapped around her legs as she stared into space. Every so often, though, her eyes would shift and she'd be looking right back at Jane, a layer of haze caused by her sadness covering the animosity in her eyes. Felix's words came back to her: _why didn't you use your powers?_ Sighing, Jane crossed her arms and walked to the passenger's seat of the car to wait for her brother.

_She knows I can, only that I didn't. That, alone, should be enough to keep her at bay._

The sound of Demetri's footsteps broke her from her thoughts. In his left hand, the silver of keys and a key ring flashed in the dull afternoon light. He tossed them into the air as he stopped in front of her, grabbing them with his other hand without looking. "Trust me, Carlisle's not an idiot. He's going to obey Volturi law before anyone else, and he's not going to come after us because he's smart enough to know the consequences of challenging Volturi decisions."

Jane took a large inhale and sighed through her nose. "I'm not worried," she said.

Demetri glanced over his shoulder, an amused smile tugging at his lips as he walked around to the driver's side of the car. Jane watched him slide into place, thinking how odd he looked against the newness of the technology, with his cape and guard garments. She walked back to the house just as Alec emerged, body on one shoulder and head in hand. He nodded at her, and she returned to the car, sliding into the front passenger's seat. "Are we all set?" he asked.

"We're leaving," she called, resting her head back as the sounds of Bach drifted over the sound system and Felix climbed into the car behind her brother. "We've done everything we came to do."

_And more_, she thought as they began to turn out of the driveway, thinking of how much human trouble the Cullen family would be in upon the discovery of Bella's body in their house. In the very back seat, she could see Alice watching first her boyfriend's face as it tilted downward to the floor, and then she watched the world as it flashed past, dismal and depressing. Jane smiled.


	4. Epilogue

In the Cullen house, Rosalie paced from one room to another, her old, frantic habit coming back to her from all those years ago. It felt strange, being so nervous. She tried to tell herself there was nothing to be scared of, but she wasn't an idiot.

_Her father's the police chief_, she said to herself over and over as she flew up and down the stairs, trying to think of what to take with her even though nothing seemed to be important enough. _Her father's the fucking _police chief.

In Alice's room, dark without lights, on the top shelf of her closet, were sets of old bags, none of which had been used in years. Rosalie ripped these down from the shelf, spilling leather and Chanel across the floor in a huge pile that she tore through with rabid fingers. She flung bags every which way as she searched for one that wasn't eye-catching.

_Run away_ was the instruction her brain gave her, memories of bad days past hammering at her mind. _You're the only one left, you have _got_ to get out of here! They're going to be looking for you!_

She pulled the most raggedy looking one from out of the mess and stuffed everything back into the closet without a thought to the cleanliness of her handiwork. The bag still had a Gucci label on the handle, but it was an old model, not one she needed to be concerned about if the police came searching. She closed the door to Alice's room with a heavy heart and ran to her own, taking a deep breath before she walked in.

Emmett's scent was everywhere. It hit her the way she expected a cannon ball might and she gasped in pain. The room was still dark, and his clothes, still dirt and blood-covered from the recent hunting trip, lay in a trail on their way to the hamper. Everything of his, no matter how little, stood out in high relief against her stuff until the room was taken over by his Ralph Lauren cologne, deodorant, mix CDs in piles around his side of the bed, and clothes he hadn't put back in a week that had congregated outside his closet. Taking a deep breath, Rosalie tried not to pick anything of his up as she started to pack. She stuffed clothes into her pack from her vanity bureau, her fingers lingering over his brushes and shirts, and she forced herself to turn away from these ghosts of a too-recent past.

Clenching her jaw as she filled the bag to capacity, Rosalie straightened up and pulled the back of her shirt down, putting her hands on her hips and taking one last look around the room. She reminded herself to try not to see the things that she couldn't take with her, and bent again to zip up her bag. Distracting herself from the memories, she tried to think of where she was going to go and how she'd be able to get there. Rosalie turned back to the door and screamed, covering her mouth with her hand.

Bella, torn nursing gown and all, stood in the doorway, completely healed, completely pale...

Completely _undead_.

"Help me," Bella said, her red eyes wide with confusion. Her hands shook at her sides, the only part of her body that moved. "Please help me."

Rosalie couldn't stop staring, her mouth wide open. Bella's body had been mended from its previous broken state. Her lungs now expanded the gown, and the hollows of her cheeks and eyes had filled in, but her whole body smelled like death and fear. She stared at Rosalie, a quiver to her chin that suggested she was about to cry, but once she started to dry sob and realized she didn't have any tears, her whole body began to shake and she reached her arms out like a child wanting to be picked up by her mother.

Rosalie lowered her hand from her mouth, still staring, still unsure. "What the hell?"

"I feel different," Bella said, reaching her arms farther, but wiggling her fingers and staring at the moving digits as her eyes bulged with her lack of tears, as though she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "I feel-so different." She looked up at Rosalie, and her eyes took on a confused gleam. "Hungry, too."

Rosalie closed her mouth, swallowing hard as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and nodded, her body still tense. "W-would you l-like me to get you s-some food?" she asked, moving on slow feet towards the door.

Bella pursed her lips and nodded, her hands still reaching. She turned her body to follow Rosalie's and hesitated as her sister-in-law did before the door. She didn't move and she didn't lower her arms.

Rosalie pointed to the hall. "May I get through?" she asked in a gentle voice, her eyes flicking to Bella's only once. She was too busy watching her reaching hands.

Bella glanced at the door, biting her lip between her teeth. "W-would you mind-if I came with you?" she asked. She glanced down at her arms and lowered them to her sides with a somewhat helpless flop, as if she didn't understand why they'd been there.

Rosalie balked, but when she saw Bella start playing with her fingers, spreading them wide and turning her hands around in front of her eyes, she nodded and waved her out. "Sure. I'll show you where we keep the blood," she said.

Bella looked up, smiling, and wandered out after her, stopping short as Rosalie stopped and turned around, one finger held up to the air. She dropped it towards Bella's stomach, an amused half-smile on her face. "Do you want to change first?" she asked.

Bella looked down at herself. She pulled the rips of her gown up her body again, piecing together the giant, bloody hole in the stomach and pulling the sleeve down a bit so that the torso of her gown covered her breasts more. "I think I'll need to," she whispered, running her hands over the cloth as she replaced it with the slow, unsteady movements of a person who'd just gone through reconstructive surgery and wasn't quite sure what to make of their new body.

It only took Rosalie a few moments to go through her closet and produce a fitting T-shirt and jeans for her sister-in-law. She knew from experience with her foster brother's girlfriend that anything else would've come off as ridiculous and unnecessary. Bella seemed to come more alive as she wore the clothes. She smiled a bit wider and she settled down at the kitchen table with a sigh, crossing her arms over her stomach as she watched Rosalie pull bags of blood from the freezer and warm them up in the microwave. Rosalie stood against the counter across the room while she watched and waited, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes on Bella. When the microwave dinged, Rosalie put the blood in a cup and handed it to her. She gagged on the first sip and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

"Animal blood," Rosalie said as an apology. "It's all we keep in the house."

Bella nodded and looked around, her eyes darting from one thing to another with greater speed than Rosalie had ever witnessed before. "Where are they?" she asked, taking another sip. She grimaced, but opened her mouth again and poured more in. When Rosalie didn't answer, Bella put the cup down. "Rose, where are they?" she asked with more force.

Rosalie inhaled and braced her hands on the table, leaning closer to her sister-in-law, her eyes glowing with intent. "Bella, how are you feeling?"

Bella blinked and shook her head. "Fine? I don't know. Different?" She held her hand up again, flexing the digits, and turned it around in front of her face as if she couldn't believe her eyes. "I feel-whole. Stronger, I guess. I feel like I haven't really felt this good in a while-like I've been cured from every sickness that I've ever had and I'd only thought I was better before, but now I'm _full _again. I'm _fresh._"

Rosalie shook her head. "You don't feel ravenous? Enraged? Anything like that?" When Bella shook _her_ head, Rosalie frowned, sighing and straightening back up, running her hands over her face. "I don't understand-"

"You're not the only one."

Both Rosalie and Bella turned towards the source of the sound and both of their mouths fell open as they found Jacob standing in the front room of the house.

Bella's face broke into a grin and she stood up, pushing her seat away from the table. "Jacob!" she said.

He didn't smile back. A large bruise was forming on the side of his face and his eyes filled with hurt as he stared from Bella to Rosalie. "I _trusted you_," he said to Bella, the words slipping through his clenched teeth. Bella's face fell and she took a step back. "I trusted you not to make a stupid decision," he waved at Rosalie, "and now look what you've gone and done. You got involved with _vampires_." He turned to Rosalie and took a step forward. "And you-you and your brother did this to her," he snapped, walking towards her at a quickening pace. Rosalie stood, but her jaw was clenched and she puffed up her chest, looking ready for a fight. Bella looked from him to Rosalie and started to move between them, but once he got close enough, Jacob's arm reached out to brushed her out of the way. When his hand connected with her skin, he stopped. The space between his brows creased and he looked at Bella, his eyes brimming with tears.

"Tell me it isn't true," he whispered, but he didn't pull his hand away. Bella took it in both of hers.

"Jacob-" she said, but he pulled his hand away, turning to Rosalie, his whole body shaking.

"WHY?" he roared.

Rosalie didn't flinch. "She was dying. We had to do something to protect her, otherwise the Volturi-"

"Volturi?" Bella and Jacob chorused at the same time with similar confusion.

Rosalie looked from one face to another and sighed, hiding her eyes in her palms. "Oh, this is going to be a long night."

"Is that the excuse you're going to use? The Boogey man came to find her?" Jacob snapped and took another step.

"Jacob, no! Wait!" Bella grabbed his arm, stopping him from going any further.

Rosalie lifted her face from her hands with a sigh and sat down at the table, motioning to the two other seats with her hands. "I think the two of you had better sit down. This might take a while."

Bella and Jacob exchanged a look, but when Rosalie's expression didn't change, they slid into their seats. Bella took another sip of blood, making Jacob grimace, but Rosalie leaned forward, signaling to them that she was about to begin.

"There's a lot to this story, so listen up, okay?" she said, looking from one face to the other.

In twenty minutes, Rosalie covered the basis of what had happened, for Jacob's sake, and the purpose of the Volturi, for Bella's sake. Neither one spoke for a long time, but as Jacob got more confused, Bella got more upset. Rosalie explained that this was the story in "mild terms," but Bella didn't want the details, or her defense of the Volturi.

"They killed my husband," Bella said, her tone flat and her fingers splayed across the table.

Rosalie nodded in understanding, but Jacob stared at her, his eyes wide. "You and Edward _got married?_"

Bella flinched under the heat of his disbelief, but kept her eyes lowered as she ran her fingers over one another. "He told me we had to," she said in a quiet voice, and Jacob scoffed.

"Oh, _this_ should be good! You _had_ to get married."

Rosalie glared at him and leaned forward across the table, her eyes flashing. "She didn't have a choice! The Volturi were going to kill her because she knew too much about us."

Bella started worrying her hands faster, taking them close to her chest and almost resting her chin on top of them. Rosalie glanced over and put a hand on top of hers, pushing them to the table as Bella looked up at her, her eyes scared. "Stop that," Rosalie said.

Bella looked from Rosalie to Jacob and lowered her head again. "I'm sorry."

Rosalie let go, but her eyes were leery and she kept glancing at Bella as she spoke. "Bella knew too much about us, like I said, and she kept telling-_someone_-about us..." Rosalie blinked. Something dawned in her eyes and she sat up straighter in her chair as her face fell. She stared at Jacob, who sat up, watching her. "_You_. You're the long-haired friend Jane was talking about. _You're_ the one Bella's been talking to about us!"

Jacob snorted and shrugged, but there was something uncomfortable about the entire gesture. He turned to and from Bella as Rosalie stared at him. "Yeah? So? What's that got to do with anything?"

Rosalie's jaw tightened and her eyes bugged as she stood up, pushing her chair backwards with a grinding of wood on tile. "You're the reason she had to get married! If she hadn't been talking to _you_, she wouldn't have gotten pregnant and they wouldn't have come back for us!"

Both Bella and Jacob looked at her, frowning. Rosalie's eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hands, shaking her head and backing up from the table.

"Excuse me?" Jacob snapped. "_Pregnant?_" He turned to Bella, whose face had gone as flat and as cold as stone. "Is this _true_?" he demanded.

She could hear the pain in his voice, the misunderstanding, but her eyes weren't for him. Bella stared at Rosalie, who was moving around the table step by step, her mouth still covered with one hand as she made her way towards her sister-in-law. "What happened to my baby?" she asked, her voice low.

Rosalie shook her head and her eyes bugged out again, filling with all the tears she wasn't able to shed. She put both of her hands on the table and leaned over it towards Bella, as if trying to reach her over Jacob. He saw this and pushed his chair back, turning from one face to the other as he tried to figure out what was going on.

"Bella, I'm so sorry," Rosalie said, her voice catching in her throat. She reached out a hand, but Bella shot out of her seat. She held her arms at her sides and a venom snaked through her as she looked at Rosalie, sprawled out on the table, her hair falling over one shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

Bella turned and hid her face with her hands, her whole body shaking.

"Wait," Jacob said standing up and looking from one vampire to the other, pointing to the hallway he'd entered the house from. "Wait, that was _your_ child?"

Rosalie looked at him, still lying across the table. "You've seen her?" she asked, her voice quiet.

"I found someone in a room with a cradle before I got attacked, and that's all I can remember," he said, scratching his head and pushing his hair over his shoulder. "I followed a baby screaming to that room and that's where I found the cradle." He looked at Bella, pointing an accusatory finger. "That was _your_ baby?"

"Where is she now?" Bella asked from behind her hands.

Rosalie didn't have to ask to know what her sister-in-law was asking. "They took her," she said, rising from the table.

"And did what?"

Rosalie swallowed hard, looking from Bella to Jacob and back again.

"And _did what,_ Rosalie?"

The vampire took a deep breath, pressing her hands together. "They're burning her, Bella."

Bella's breathing hitched and Rosalie was about to tell her that she didn't _have_ to breathe anymore, but the words died in her throat as she watched Bella lower her hands from her face. No one, not even Jacob, moved. All eyes were on Bella, watching her hands make their way back to her sides with all the ease of a drawbridge falling back into place.

"I have to kill them," she whispered.

Rosalie felt her heart start in her chest when there shouldn't have been an echo of anything. "You _what_?" she asked, frightened.

Bella turned and Rosalie jumped back, her eyes trained on her sister-in-law's face. "I have to kill them. There's nothing else I need to do right now."

Rosalie opened her mouth just as Jacob laughed and stood up. "Bella, I hate to break it to you, but if these guys are what the blo-"

Rosalie shot him a look and he shut his mouth. "Rosalie, boy," she said, her words slow, as if she were talking to a child. "My name is _Rosalie_."

He nodded and turned back to Bella, his face paler than it'd been before. She narrowed her eyes, curious that he'd be more afraid of Rosalie than he was of her, but listened. "If what _Rosalie's _saying is true, these Volturi are bad guys."

Rosalie gave him a look. "_That_'s _not what I said!_" she snapped

"I meant they're stronger than the two of you."

"That's not what _you_ said."

Jacob stood up. "That's what I _meant_."

"Then say it!"

"THIS DOESN'T STOP ME FROM WHAT I HAVE TO DO," Bella said, raising her voice over the two of them. Both vampire and human stopped their shouting match and turned to look at her. She turned to her sister-in-law. "There isn't anyone else in this house, you say?" she asked.

Rosalie nodded.

Bella clenched her jaw, exhaling through her nose. "Okay, then. Answer me this one question: where has everybody gone?"

Again, Rosalie's eyes bulged in her eye sockets and she opened her mouth a bit, as if she had a stuffy nose and couldn't breathe. She closed the distance between them and took Bella's hands. "Esme and Carlisle ran away. The Volturi took Alice and Jasper." She took a deep breath. "Emmett-" she started and then turned her face away, clenching her teeth as her hands tightened around Bella's, who squeezed back. Rosalie took a deep breath through her mouth. "Emmett's dead."

Bella gasped, and then her mind wandered to the only other there could possibly be. "And Edward?" she asked.

Rosalie shook her head. "They took him, the baby, and Emmett to be burned when they left. Oh, Bella, I'm so sorry!"

Bella looked at a space over Rosalie's shoulder and nodded, squeezing her sister-in-law's hands. "It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself," she said, but even as she spoke, the words felt odd and mechanical on her tongue. After a second, she stopped squeezing. "Rose, I've decided. I'm going after them. I'm going to make Jane pay for what she's done."

The silence that filled the room for a second could've rocked the earth, and then Rosalie laughed once, without humor, as her face morphed from despairing to ridiculing. "Bella, you can't do that. Not only is the human-"

"_Jacob_."

Rosalie closed her eyes, irritated. "Jacob," she said, as though it took a very great effort, and then opened her eyes again. "Not only is _Jacob_ right about the Volturi being dangerous, but you're a _newborn_. You're unstable, and if Jane learns about that with that _globe_ of hers, then she can use it _against _you."

Bella shook her head and patted Rosalie's arm. "I love you, Rose. I really, really do. I love you and I respect your opinion. But..." She sighed and looked at the wall, as if it had the phrasing she couldn't find inside her head. "Rosalie, _she killed my husband_, and yours, too. She _killed my child_. I don't know how things work around that in the _vampire_ world, but in the human world, wives and mothers will speak up."

Rosalie didn't say anything. She stared at Bella for a long time, pressing her lips together. Bella grasped her shoulders.

"Rosalie, please tell me you'll go with me."

The vampire laughed, shaking her head and falling back a step. "Are you insane? They'll kill us!" she said, her eyes flashing.

"Your master plan is to walk _into_ the fire?" Jacob snapped, appearing behind Rosalie's shoulder and crossing his arms over his chest. She jumped, but when she saw how angry he was at Bella's idea, too, she stood beside him. "Bella, just _how much blood_ did you lose during that pregnancy?"

Bella bit her lip with frustration and buried her face in her hands, but as Jacob spoke, Rosalie's face fell as something dawned on her.

"Wait a minute," she said, her voice hard. She stepped back into the center of the room so that she could look at both Bella and Jacob at once. Jacob turned to her, but Bella kept her face hidden so that Rosalie had to go over and shake them loose, crouching down so that her sister-in-law would look at her eyes. "That's just it! Bella, don't you understand? This is what the Volturi got wrong when they killed your child! _You got pregnant_. The child they wanted to kill and the child they ended up killing were two different children!" Rosalie groaned and ran her hands through her hair. "Oh, how could I have _missed _this? The Volturi thought your child was an _immortal child_. They thought we went out of our way to kill a child _for_ you."

Jacob shook his head, stepping towards her. "That doesn't make sense, though. If they know things, wouldn't they've seen this beforehand? I passed through the room with Bella before I got to the cradle. Wouldn't they've seen her and known?"

Rosalie shook her head. "They must've assumed." She shook Bella's shoulder, turning her sister-in-law around, a broad grin on her face. "Don't you see, Bella? This is good! This means you can fight back! They were wrong!"

Bella lifted her head, her eyes hard and dark, two glowing rubies. "We're going to Volterra."

"Isn't that interesting?" Aro said to himself. He and Jane sat in his office again, only this time she sat in his chair while he hovered over the globe at a table closer to the door.

Jane looked up from where she had steepled her fingers in front of her face and blinked at him with lingering boredom. He caught her eye, smiled with some hesitation, and straightened up.

"I don't think you're going to like this, my dear Jane."

She sat up so that her back pressed against the wood of the chair.

"Our little friend Bella is coming after you. She knows what you did to her husband and child."

Jane thought about this for a minute, and then a smile made its way across her face. "Is she now?" Jane nodded and leaned her head back against the seat, her eyes studying the ceiling. "This is good-very good!"

Aro's mouth twitched in a quirk, but he wasn't smiling. He couldn't stop staring at the girl, who flexed her fingers and closed her eyes, her face still lifted towards the sky. "She wants you dead, Jane. The girl is a vampire now and she's out to kill you."

"And I'm a Volturi guard. There have been duels before among our kind." She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I fail to see the problem here."

With her eyes closed, she couldn't see the tightening of Aro's smile. His eyes, so like a child's in their usual delight, turned hard and wild as these words dug their path into his brain. "Oh, my dear, sweet child. Do you have any idea of the strength of her powers?"

"I don't need to. Besides, I want her to come here." She lifted her head. For the first time in a long while, she glared at Aro and her eyes sparked with power. "This is important to me, Aro, so I need you to understand something." She pointed a finger at him and he pressed his papery hands together. "You must not interfere. None of you. Not any one of the Volturi can make an appearance. I must be completely and utterly alone. No questions asked. Do I make myself clear?"

She watched Aro tighten his jaw, the gears moving behind his eyes as his fingers folded over one another. Even despite all this, he nodded. The tension in Jane's shoulders left and she stood up.

"I need to leave," she said, holding up her chin and leaving the room before he had the chance to say anything.

In the hall, as she walked by, doors opened and members of the coven stuck their heads out to look at her, watching and whispering and nodding to each other. Their eyes glowed out of the darkness like jewels. Jane turned on her heel in the middle of the hallway, facing the whisperers. Every open door started to shut, but stopped when she stared down each of their inhabitants.

"I'm giving this as your warning now and I don't expect to give it again," she said. She didn't need to raise her voice to know that every onlooker was listening. "This battle is mine. These vampires are mine. Anyone who interferes with this will be exterminated along with the perpetrators. Is that understood?"

The hall rang with the slamming shut of ten different doors. Jane nodded, looking at each one and turning her shoulder to them. "I thought so."

Bella winced as she, Rosalie, and Jacob walked up the slope of a Volterra street towards the Volturi castle. Even though it was the middle of the night, she felt pangs all around her, coming from different places inside of her body, and she stopped every so often to rest against the brownstone buildings, taking deep, gulping breaths. The first time it happened, she told Rosalie it was just a cramp, which her sister-in-law scoffed at and told her vampires couldn't get. The second time, she lurched bent over and took deep breaths from between her legs. Jacob offered to carry her, but she waved him off and told him she was fine. Now, he bent and lifted her bridal-style into his arms.

"You're not fine, so don't lie to me," he said as Rosalie walked over and put a hand on her arm.

"Bella, what's wrong? What's happening?" she asked, her brow furrowed with concern.

Bella shook her head and pressed her forehead against Jacob's shoulder. She felt his muscles contract and remembered how cold she must've felt to him. "I don't know. I thought it was cramps-that's what it feels like." She winced again, pressing her hands to the spot in her side and wishing it was daylight and that they didn't have to crawl around these streets like common criminals.

Rosalie shook her head, pressing her hand to the spot. "You're low on blood, Bella. You didn't drink enough back at the house. You're going to need to find something to eat," she said, looking up and around the street corners to see if she could find anyone lurking alone in the dark of the night. Bella shook her head.

"I don't think there's any time for that. We have to get to the Volturi-" She ground her teeth together as the pain shot through her abdomen and her whole body coiled into itself.

Rosalie nodded and turned to Jacob. "We're almost there. The Volturi might be able to help. Bella, if you can just hang on until we get there-"

"I'm not taking anything from them," Bella muttered between clenched teeth.

Rosalie shook her head at her, her face glowing in the scant light coming from the moon and the buildings they passed. "You might not have a choice. They're the justice system. They're not cruel and they're not out to get you. If they want to fight, then they'll want you well enough to handle it." She turned to Jacob and nodded to the hill they still had to finish climbing. "Come on, let's get her up there."

When they crested the hill, a familiar face awaited them at the doors. Felix, holding his arms at his sides, smiled at them as they made their way into the outdoor hall, his eyes glowing like coals fresh from the fire.

"She's been waiting for you," he said as they stepped onto Volturi territory. His mouth became a line of amusement as he watched Jacob gasp, dropping Bella down onto the floor so that she was standing up on her own, his hands falling to his knees as he tried to catch his breath and Rosalie walked forward, representing them.

"Please, do you have blood, or something for Bella to drink," she said, turning to glance at her sister-in-law as she clutched her side. "She's very hungry and she's losing strength."

As Rosalie spoke, Felix turned away, walking back down the hall. The three visitors stared after him in disbelief until he called over his shoulder, "There will be refreshments just outside the throne room. Follow me." His voice echoed off the walls.

Rosalie bit her lip, nodding, and turned back to Bella, whose face had begun to pale even more with the loss of blood and hunger. She dropped her hands onto her sister-in-law's shoulders and tried to rub some strength back into her muscles. "I'll carry you for a bit, how's that?" she asked. Bella nodded and Rosalie turned to Jacob. "Do you mind if I carry her?"

He waved a hand, still doubled over. "Not at all," he said through gasping breaths.

Rosalie nodded, bending and lifting Bella bridal-style. Her sister-in-law blinked heavy eyelids and fell back against her shoulder.

"Follow me!" Felix's voice boomed to them from the other end of the hall, where a rectangle of gold light appeared on the floor where a door had been.

Rosalie nodded to it, looking at Jacob. "Let's go."

No one spoke much. They passed the various rooms of the Volturi castle in awe of what they were seeing. Jacob walked closer to Rosalie as they passed under giant stone buttresses and arched ceilings, the smells of death and decay heavy on the air, refusing to be covered by the smells of old paper and candle wax. On Rosalie's shoulder, Bella had fallen asleep, and the vampire nearly cried in relief when Felix led them to the end of the hall and gestured to a table set out beside great, iron-locked double doors and filled with goblets of blood and some flatbread.

"For the human," Felix explained when Rosalie put Bella down and went to grab some food. Jacob balked at him and backed up a step, but Felix had turned away and was walking off down the hall. Rosalie ignored him, taking a goblet and coaxing Bella's mouth open.

"Forget him, Jacob. Bella, you need to drink this," she said. Bella's eyes fluttered open and Rosalie poured the blood in, Jacob pulling a face behind her. As she drank, Bella sat up and eventually took the goblet from her sister-in-law's hands. When one had finished, she reached for another and finished that, too. Rosalie drank half a cup before handing the rest of hers over. Jacob pointed to it as Bella started drinking.

"You're not going to need that?" he asked.

Rosalie shook her head. "I'll be fine without it. I'm not as tired as she is."

When Bella put the last goblet back on the table, the doors to the throne room swung open.

"You may enter," a high, familiar voice called from inside. Bella stood up and followed Jacob and Rosalie in. The doors swung shut behind them.

Despite the late hour, the room glowed like the noonday sun from the thousands of candles set high above their heads, worked into the arch of the ceiling and bouncing off the gold-covered walls. In the very center of the room, with the floor pattern whirling out around her, stood Jane in a plain black dress and Mary Jane shoes. She smiled at them.

"Well, it's good to see you all out and about, isn't it?" she said and turned to Jacob. Her smile widened and he fell to his knees with a cry. Rosalie and Bella jumped back from him, watching as his whole body constricted, every vein in his body standing out like a cord, tightening and unwinding around his body and holding him in.

Bella turned to Jane, her face falling in shock. "What are you doing? _What are you doing_?" she asked, her voice rising with hysterics. She started charging for the vampire.

"I'm doing away with him, what do you think?" Jane asked before she turned her eyes on Bella, sending Jacob slumping to the floor.

"NO! STOP IT!" Rosalie shrieked, but nothing happened. Bella got close enough to touch, and Jane backhanded her to the side, her eyes wide. The newborn slammed into the wall and crumpled, but blinked herself awake.

Jane's fists clenched at her sides. "So, we're immune to mental powers, are we?" she asked under her breath. Jane smiled again and closed the distance between them. Bella stood up, shifting her weight away, as Jane took her by the arm and slammed her into the wall again. The next time she tried to do that, Bella put her arms up in defense, covering her face. Jane's hand reached out and then bounced back when she was only inches away. It flew backwards and hit Jane in the shoulder.

The hall fell silent. Bella looked up, her eyes as wide as guard's were with disbelief. Jane closed her open mouth and her jaw tightened again.

"Funny," she whispered and turned back to Rosalie.

Bella stood up a little straighter, but didn't take her arms down from her face. "You killed my husband," she said, her voice wavering, "and my baby."

Jane continued to study Rosalie, who shifted her weight as she watched the guard sizing her up. "The immortal child."

Bella took a deep, shaky breath. "MY BABY!" she screamed. She charged into Jane again, but the vampire spun around and with another backhand, sent her flying into the wall again.

"The immortal child needed to die!" Jane called after her as Jacob stood up and started running forward on shaking legs. The vampire turned and threw out her other arm, stopping him as she sent ricochets of pain all through his body, concentrating it on one source.

"STOP IT!" Rosalie screamed and then she, too, charged forward until Jane put out her other arm and stopped her in her tracks, sending equal amounts of pain down _her_ body. Rosalie, unlike Jacob, screamed and shrieked under the torture. She could hear Bella getting up behind her.

"Stop it! Please!" the newborn called over Rosalie's screaming as Jane approached Jacob, who watched her with wide eyes.

"Let's get rid of you," she said. Continuing her torture of Rosalie by keeping her eyes on the blonde, she leaned forward and ripped off his head.

Both girls screamed, calling out, "JACOB!" so that his name rang through the hall like a tolling bell.

Jane smiled and walked towards Rosalie as she heard the scraping and pounding of Bella's feet as she got up and charged, but by the time she'd arrived, Jane had Rosalie in a head lock. As Rosalie's nails dug into her arm, her whole body trembling, Jane saw Bella skid to a stop only feet from them, her eyes wide as she watched the Volturi guard work her fingers through her sister-in-law's hair to get a good grip on her head.

"It's such a shame when good vampires disobey the law. Isn't it?" she asked, her hands tightening around Rosalie's temples. Rosalie's hands took hold of Jane's wrists and she took shaky breaths as Bella took a step closer. The scent of old human blood washed over Jane's face and she reveled in it, like a fine perfume.

"Please," Bella whispered, her voice tight. She didn't move anything except her eyes. "Please don't kill her."

Jane tsked, shaking her head. "I might not have a choice. We have laws, you see, and if they're not upheld...well..." She laughed. "What's the point of having laws if people break them and aren't punished when they do?" She began to twist Rosalie's head, her hands like small vices, and Rosalie screamed. She could feel the vampire's body pressed against her side as Rosalie tried to move away, her grip on Jane's wrists getting tighter.

"PLEASE!" Bella screamed, running forward a bit more. Jane looked up at her and they both stopped. Rosalie whimpered. Bella shook her hands, her eyes bulging, and took a great, gasping breath. "What do you want?" she asked. "What do you want from us?"

Jane blinked at her. "Justice," she said. "Nobody should be allowed to harbor a criminal."

Bella stepped forward, waving a hand at herself. "What about me?" she asked. "W-what if I give you me?"

Jane scoffed at her. "What the hell could I possibly want from _you_? Do you know why I'm _not_ considering your offer? You're too stupid to be left on your own. You'd seek out revenge and I can't let that happen." She shook her head. "No. If someone ought to die, it's you, my dear."

She watched a smile quirk onto Bella's face, ruined only by a muscle tick of fear that kept it twitching in its place. "Then kill me!" she said, putting a hand on her chest. "Let _her_ live!"

Jane smiled. She looked at Rosalie, who crouched on the tiles on her knees and faced the floor, her hands on Jane's, and her hair a mess where the guard gripped it. "Not a chance."

Rosalie only had the time to scream once, and it died in her throat as Jane broke her neck and twisted her head from her body. Bella shrieked, staring as the body of her sister-in-law fell to the ground, blood pooling out around her, and her head rolling after while Jane straightened up, a tight smile on her face. When Bella finally turned to the guard, her eyes flashed with hate.

"You're a MONSTER!" she snarled, leaping onto Jane. The two vampires slid back and Jane took Bella by the arms, whirling her around so that she flew backwards. Bella clung on, bringing Jane with her, and they tumbled to the floor in a heap, skidding across the tiles. As Bella began to pull herself towards Jane, the Volturi guard reached up and took hold of her head. The newborn froze, her eyes wild, inches from Jane's face.

"_You're_ the monster here," Jane whispered and snapped off her head.

Bella's body fell to the ground in front of her, oozing old blood onto the floor. Breathing hard, Jane hoisted herself to her feet, still gripping the newborn's head in her hand. She looked at it, still staring, its mouth hanging open in an elongated scream of horror, and wondered for a moment what it would be like, having such a vampire living with her. Jane glanced over at the body of the Rosalie girl, whose face lay on its side, its golden hair getting drenched in the mess of her old blood as it pooled out around her torso. Jane sighed.

"So much hate," she whispered, tossing the head of the newborn onto the back of its body. It rolled off and slowed to a stop beside it, face-down on the tiles. "So much reckless disobedience. You leave me with no choice when these kinds of things happen." She looked up as she heard the door creak open.

Aro, pressing his powdery hands together, walked inside, his eyes flitting over each of the girls. "You did kill them, then," he whispered and then nodded. His steps were quiet and slow across the tiles as he went to study first the Rosalie girl and then the newborn, ignoring the human entirely. "Both of equally great talents, too." He made a tsking sound in the back of his throat as he turned around to face the door. "Such a waste." Jane watched Aro walk out and then call behind himself, "I'll send Felix and Demetri out to clean them up," as he left the room.

THE END


End file.
